Wanderer's Sojourn Into Dwelling

The Jewish narrative, at once eternal and mobile, provides a flexible and living foundation, uniting its diasporic people. Located in the between, the Diasporic Wanderer recognizes himself both as Other and as being among the Other. In contrast to the Gentile Home, constructed by the domination and exclusion of the Other, the Jewish Home is the recognition and welcome of/in the Other. This hypothesis is translated into the design of a Book-(im)mobile that travels the intersection of meuble and immeuble described by Lévinas. Inscribing itself temporarily through an architectural discourse and reinstating continuity with/in the Other, the Book-(im)mobile challenges the traditional architectural metaphor, exposing the tension between permanence and stability in the building/ground relationship. Diasporic consciousness, alterity, and the textual traditions of Talmud and midrash provide the framework for reconciling the ambiguous relationship between the architext and architecture of Home.